When Google makes nonsense
Much water under the bridge.
I don't really want a repeat screening of the previous post, but here's some weirdness. If you do a Google search for a phrase, you should only find subsets of the total number of hits for that phrase every time you add a word. For example, "much water" gets 1.19 million hits. I would've thought that if I modify "much" with words such as "too", "so", "as", the results should add up to something less than 1.19 million. Instead, these are the numbers I get
I'm sure there's something I'm missing because I would've thought that the simpler the phrase, the greater the number of hits. With the phrases above, I end up with over 1.5 million apparently lost hits for "much water".
Or perhaps I'm not missing something. [Apart from a few screws. –ed.]
I don't really want a repeat screening of the previous post, but here's some weirdness. If you do a Google search for a phrase, you should only find subsets of the total number of hits for that phrase every time you add a word. For example, "much water" gets 1.19 million hits. I would've thought that if I modify "much" with words such as "too", "so", "as", the results should add up to something less than 1.19 million. Instead, these are the numbers I get
how much water: 988,000
too much water: 877,000
so much water: 338,000
as much water: 543,000
Total: 2.746 million
I'm sure there's something I'm missing because I would've thought that the simpler the phrase, the greater the number of hits. With the phrases above, I end up with over 1.5 million apparently lost hits for "much water".
Or perhaps I'm not missing something. [Apart from a few screws. –ed.]
Comments
If we take that Language Log post with a grain of salt large enough to satisfy a Beijing chef and give all normal people an immediate heart attack, and see the theory as being somewhat analogous to the Chinese grammatical influence on English sentences resulting in Singlish, then I can see his point. You're right, though, in pointing out that expanding this into some kind of Sprachbund is absolute bollocks. The existence of Singlish does not prove the existence of an English-Sinitic-Malay-Tamil Sprachbund.
Alright, I'm an amateur and making a fool of myself, I'll shut about Sprachbuende (praise be to almight Google for correcting my spelling of the plural).
You wrote over where I can't comment: "By the time English is using "do" as an auxiliary or by the time continuous verb forms develop, any slight influence the Celtic languages might've had would've long since ceased. Also, from what little I know of Modern Icelandic, that language has also developed a continuous verb form which can hardly be blamed on Celtic."
Well, if that means Celtic also has a continuous verb form, than that may well represent a Celtic influence on Icelandic. Assuming of course that the Icelandic form dates back to the very early stages of the languages development. Remember, the Language Log post relies quite heavily on genetics for proof that the Celts didn't disappear from what became England, and therefore may well have influenced English grammar. From what I understand of the genetics of Iceland and the history of Viking-Celt contact and Iceland, the same principle applies.
To sum up: I can see his point, although I'm inclined to take it with a huge grain of salt, and I'm not convinced your use of Modern Icelandic proves your point. That may work against you.
Now I really will stop making a fool of myself with my ridiculously amateur linguistics.
Also, although there were Celts in Iceland during the early Middle Ages, they were there as slaves. (See, for instance, Laxdæla Saga) From a sociolinguistic perspective, it means that they weren't in a position to influence Icelandic.
There were Irish monks in Iceland when the first Norsemen arrived there, but they were seen off the premises pretty promptly.
The other point about continuous verb forms in Welsh is the grammar. In fact, the structure is, historically, "be + yn + verbal noun". In other words, the form is derived from a prepositional phrase. Of course, I assume that yn (and also wedi "after" which is used to form the equivalent of the perfect) is no longer treated as a preposition; in the same way, the to-infinitive in English has long since ceased to be a true prepositional phrase. The grammar of the Welsh and English forms is historically disparate.
Old English had a rare pseudo-continuous form which was sort of like the MnE continuous, and like it constructed from "wesan + present participle". In fact, that seems to have been influenced by Latin. I don't know whether anything similar is found in the other Old Germanic languages.
As for that genetics thing, I saw a programme a few years back about an genetic analysis of the UK. England and Scotland were Anglo-Saxon. Only Wales and Ireland remained solidly Celtic. However, that research may have been superseded. In fact, I believe one subject of that study found that he was related to some people in Norway.
Still, it was a nice little theory while it lasted.